International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology.

ISSN 0974-3154 Volume 3, Number 3 (2010), pp. 811--816

© International Research Publication House
http://www.irphouse.com

GPON Link Performance with Dispersion

Compensation

Jaswinder Singh and Harminder Kaur

Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering

Beant College of Engineering & Technology, Gurdaspur, Punjab, India
Electronics & Communication Engineering
Khalsa College of Engineering & Technology, Amritsar, Punjab, India

Abstract

In the GPON(Gigabit Capable Passive Optical Network) based Fiber- to- the-
home (FTTH) solutions, the selection of fiber and the link performance are
key issues to realization of an overall efficient P2MP[point to multipoint]
optical communication system. The analysis presented in this paper shows that
the inevitable degradation caused due to inherent waveguide dispersion and
pulse widening, associated with optical fiber, can be compensated
substantially by using DCF (Dispersion compensated fibre ) in the GPON
network.
In this paper, we simulate the performance of 1.25Gbps GPON downlink
using DCF by analyzing the system parameters such as eye diagrams & signal
plots along the link; at different fiber lengths, so as to validate the advantages
provided there-in.

Index Terms: GPON, DCF, FTTH, NRZ non return to zero), Dispersion
Compensation, Passive optical networks (PONs).

Introduction
In the last two decades FTTH has emerged as one of the main attractive technologies
for delivering high bandwidth services. Passive optical networks (PON) based FTTH
solutions capable of offering broadband services to access networks, provide a far
more reliable, much higher bandwidth, secure & highly cost efficient alternatives to
other broadband access technologies such as DSL(Digital subscriber loop),
HFC(Hybrid fiber coaxial) networks employing cable modems etc.[1]
Lately PONs have been the focus of considerable research development and
standardization of FTTH based broadband access technologies. A-PON ( ATM based
812 Jaswinder Singh and Harminder Kaur

PON) was the first generation of PONs to be deployed and these evolved into B-
PONS ( Broadband PONs) [2]. Today E-PON (Ethernet PON) and GPON are the
focus of service providers worldwide. FTTP is currently experiencing tremendous
growth in Europe, Japan, several Asian countries and the United States with an ever
increasing demand for bandwidth, both for end- user access and transport networks, to
support the new generation of services and applications[3-4]. As such, increasingly,
Telecom service Operators worldwide are deploying GPONs to meet these demands.
The ever growing Internet shows no signs of the demand for bandwidth slowing
down in future and standardization organizations (IEEE 802.3ah task force and
ITU/FSAN full service access network group ) are working on the next generation
PONs (XG-PONS) offering higher bandwidth (upto 10 Gbps) than GPON and
competitive service providers and equipment vendors will break into market with XG-
PONs very soon in near future. In this paper, analysis of the performance of the
GPON downlink with and without inclusion of the DCF in the GPON network, is
carried out to find the effect of fiber dispersion compensation on the improvement in
system performance which can be traded-off for extending the network reach and
improvement of the link power budget of the GPON system.

System Set Up
A typical PON system consists of the OLT (Optical Line Terminal) at the service
network side and the ONU/ONTs (Optical Network Units/terminals) at the end user
side. The OLT and the ONUs are connected by the ODN (Optical Distribution
Network), formed by the optical fiber and the passive optical splitters. The
downstream transmission (from OLT to ONUs) is in the continuous mode and the
upstream transmission (from ONUs to OLT) is in the Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA) burst mode.
In order to increase the reach of the passive optical network (i.e. distance between
the OLT and the ONUs), or the splitting ratio of the passive optical splitters; which
creates the need for an increased power budget to support the extended reach, several
papers have recently demonstrated the use of optical amplification technologies such
as EDFA or RAMAN in the PONs, use of high gain SOAs(Semiconductor Optical
amplifiers), DWDM (Dense wavelength division multiplexing), etc.[6-10]. In this
paper we shall investigate the use of dispersion compensated fiber (DCF) in the
GPON downlink so as to improve the overall system performance; by analyzing the
effect of the compensation of the fiber dispersion on key system parameters such as
eye diagrams, signal strengths, etc. A Typical 1.25 Gbps GPON downlink,
conforming to ITU –T G.984 [11] series recommendations for GPON; serving two
ONUs is simulated using the R-Soft OptSIM, optical simulator software. The Block
Diagram of the GPON system architecture is shown in Fig.1
As depicted in Fig.1, the GPON 1.25 Gbps downlink carries the 1490nm
wavelength to transmit the Data/Voice information and the 1550 nm wavelength to
transmit the video information from the OLT to the ONUs. The two transmit optical
carriers are coupled into the same fiber by the CWDM (Coarse wavelength Division
Multiplexing). The Optical signal received at the user end is divided into two signals
for Video and Data/Voice by the respective optical filters.
GPON Link Performance with Dispersion Compensation 813

The Link performance analysis mainly involves the study of Eye diagram patterns
and the signal strength plots of the Data/Voice and Video signals at the receiver for
NRZ (Non return to Zero) data modulation format for line encoding; and also for the
two cases of with and without the inclusion of DCF in the fiber downlink.

System Simulation
The RSof’s optical simulator, OptSIM has been used to simulate 1.25 Gbps GPON
downlink for two ONUs. as depicted in Fig.2.
The Key simulation parameters are; Downstream Transmission bit rate of 1.25
Gbps, Operating Wavelengths 1550 nm for the Video data and 1490 nm for the
Data/Voice signal in the downstream direction, NRZ data modulation format for Line
encoding, SMF Fiber and DCF 10km, included in the GPON network.
Optical Filter Video data
RX 1550nm

Downstream 1.25 Gbps ONU 1 CHANNEL 1

OLT

VIDEO TX
SMF
Optical Filter Data/ Voice
1550 nm RX 1490 nm
C
W
D
1490 nm M Splitter

DATA TX

Optical Filter Video data

RX 1550nm

ONU2 CHANNEL 2

Optical Filter Data/Voice

RX 1490nm

Fig. 1 GPON System Architecture

Fig. 2 GPON System Set Up

814 Jaswinder Singh and Harminder Kaur

Results & Discussions

To analyze the performance of the link, the following results were taken. Fig.3 (a) and
(b) show the signal spectrum and the eye diagrams of the Data/Voice receive signal
while Fig. 3 (c) and (d) show the signal spectrum and signal plots of the Video receive
signal. All these results were first taken without the insertion of the DCF and with
NRZ line encoding. The complete set of results were repeated with the inclusion of a
10 km of DCF in the GPON network and the results are shown in Fig. 4 (a) to (d)
respectively.
The comparison of results obtained with and without dispersion compensation
shows that there is a significant improvement in the system performance obtained
with dispersion compensation.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 3 NRZ Encoding, without DCF: (a) and (b) data/voice receive signal while (c),
(d) received video signal .
GPON Link Performance with Dispersion Compensation 815

(a ) (b)

( c) (d)

Fig.4 NRZ Encoding, with DCF: (a) and (b) Data/Voice Receive signal (c), (d)
received video signal

Conclusions
In this paper we have presented both scenarios of a GPON downlink , with and
without the inclusion of dispersion compensation fiber(DCF) in the GPON network.
The analysis and the comparison of the results of the simulation; with and without
DCF; are consistent with the fact that NRZ line encoding is suitable for GPON, as is
also specified by the ITU-T G.984 GPON standards.
Further, comparing the corresponding results for fiber lengths (10Km, 30Km,
50Km and 70Km) with and without the DCF, clearly indicate that the link
performance shows a considerable and substantial improvement, in terms of the Eye
diagrams and Signal strength plots (both for Data/Voice and Video signals), in the
case where DCF is used in the GPON system downlink. Despite the fact that the use
of DCF will definitely increase the cost factor of the system, this solution can be
interesting for achieving increased reach extensions and power budget. The results
imply that a budget upgrade and reach upgrade can be feasible by using DCF in the
GPON technology, while still maintaining its entirely passive nature by not requiring
816 Jaswinder Singh and Harminder Kaur

electrical power to be supplied in the access network; unlike alternative solutions that
make use of Optical amplifiers.

References
[1] Paul W. Shumate, Fiber to the Home :1997-2007, Journal of Lightwave
Technology, No.9, 2008.
[2] Kyeong Soo Kim, On the Evolution of PON–based FTTH Solutions,
Information Science 149(2003), 21-30 Elsevier.
[3] T.S. El-Bawab, Passive Optical Networks(PONs): Past, Present and Future,
Optical Switching and Networking 6(2009), 143-150 Elsevier.
[4] Mark Abrams, FTTP Deployments in the United States and Japan :Equipment
Choices and Service Provider Imperatives, Journal of Lightwave Technology,
Vol-23, No 1, January 2005.
[5] Frank J Effenberger, Next Genration PON: Lessons learned from G-PON and
GE-PON : ECOC 2009, 20-24 Sept. 2009 Vienna, Austria.
[6] N.Genay, Evaluation of the Budget Extensions of a GPON by EDFA
amplification, ICTON 2007.
[7] Russel P.Davey, and Peter Healey, DWDM Reach Extensions of a GPON
to135 Km Journal of Lightwave Technology, Vol.-24, No.1 January 2006.
[8] Derek Nussel, Tony Keller, Extended Reach GPON Using High Gain
Semiconductor Optical Amplification, OFC/NFOEC 2009.
[9] Derek Nussel, Dave Poyne, Demonstration of Enhanced Reach and Split of a
GPON system using Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers.
[10] K.L. Lee, J.L Riding, Extended Reach GPON for Rural areas using Distributed
Raman Amplifiers, OSA/OFC/NFOEC 2009.
[11] Recommendations ITU-T G.984 series for GPON,(2008).